Changing Our
TuneBulbul
Music School Strikes a New Chordby Nigar
Asgarova, Director

I believe that Azerbaijan has
a great treasury of music that has yet to be unearthed. But this
won't happen until young Azerbaijanis become more familiar with
their own culture.

Azerbaijan's
independence came as a mixed blessing for many of Azerbaijan's
institutions, including Bulbul Music School. Of course, it was
a relief to the administration to finally have the freedom to
make decisions about how the school should be run. But much of
the school's funding, which used to come from the government,
had dried up. The prestigious, 70-year-old institution was literally
falling apart at the seams.

Water dripped through the roof every time it rained. The heating
system had completely broken down, and temperatures in the classrooms
would dip as low as 11° to 13° C (52° to 56°
F). There weren't enough chairs and tables for all of the students.
The instruments were in bad condition. But when there's no longer
any major fund to dip into, what can be done? The school's budget
was only enough to cover the salaries.

Left: Bulbul School got a
"face lift" this past summer 2001 - sandblasting, paint
and new windows. Right: Before refurbishment.

Nigar Asgarova became Director of Bulbul Music School in 1992,
just after Azerbaijan became independent. With lots of hard work
and persuasion, she was able to turn the school around and make
dramatic improvements in its appearance. Responding to her call
for help, parents and teachers stepped in with donations and
hard work to repair the building, fix the roof and make other
much-needed repairs in the classrooms and halls. Recently, the
windows were replaced through the help of the Ministry of Education,
and the exterior was sandblasted and painted.

However, Nigar Khanim (Mrs. Nigar, as she is fondly called by
faculty and students alike) says that there is still a great
deal that needs to be done. Today she is focusing on trying to
introduce overdue changes to the school's curriculum and approach
in order to give it a theoretical basis that is distinctively
Azerbaijani. Here she discusses some of these major changes,
particularly how more and more students are studying Azerbaijani
music and learning to play traditional instruments like the tar
and kamancha in addition to Western instruments such as the piano,
violin, viola and cello.

I believe that Azerbaijan has a rich deposit of music that has
yet to be unearthed. But this won't happen until young Azerbaijanis
become more familiar with their own culture. It's really a shame,
but today's youth know very little about Azerbaijani traditional
music. I would love for my students to know how rich their country's
own music is.

Famous Azerbaijani composers like Uzeyir Hajibeyov, Gara Garayev,
Fikrat Amirov, Jovdat Hajiyev, Arif Malikov, Vasif Adigozalov,
Hasan and Azer Rezayev were very familiar with Azerbaijan's music,
including the traditional modal form known as mugham. They wrote
operas, symphonies and other works incorporating traditional
melodies and modes. Just consider Amirov's "Kurd-Afshari"
(1949), "Shur" (1946) and "Gulustan Bayati-Shiraz"
(1968) - all three symphonies were based on mughams, as was Niyazi's
"Rast" symphony.

Left: The Children's Symphonic Orchestra under
the direction of Composer Azer Rezayev has just celebrated its
5th Jubilee.

So many other great pieces like these could be written if our
students really understood the roots of Azerbaijani music. Why
do you think George Gershwin's works are so popular throughout
the world? He based them on American music, the music of his
roots. But we've had very few Azerbaijani composers who have
used their own roots.

Every composer should "drink water from his own land,"
as we are fond of saying. If he "drinks water" from
other lands, then the world won't recognize him as being distinct.

Then and Now
During the Soviet period, we weren't supposed to "drink
water from our own land". Children were encouraged to study
music, and very intensely, but only European and Russian music.
Instead of studying traditional musical instruments like the
tar or kamancha, most children studied Western instruments like
the piano, violin or cello.

In the past decade, however, many more students have come to
our school to study traditional Azerbaijani instruments and music.
Many of them have moved here from the regions - some of them
from Nagorno-Karabakh, which is now militarily occupied by Armenia.
Karabakh is known for its rich reservoir of musical talent. Every
family tends to have at least one musician, and the area was
known as the center of khananda (traditional) singing.

Left: Bulbul students visit the British Museum.

Today we have a large proportion of tar players, kamancha players
and traditional singers. With such a large pool of talent, we've
been able to start a folk instrument orchestra, using instruments
such as the tar, kamancha, balaban, zurna and tutak. In the entire
history of our school, we've never had an orchestra of national
musical instruments before.

New Curriculum
Before Azerbaijan became independent, the school's curriculum
was imposed by Moscow. Our school's teachers were not allowed
to deviate from this program. Much of the curriculum focused
on Russian music literature and Russian music history; very little
time was devoted to Azerbaijani music literature.

The curriculum that we used was basically identical to that of
other music schools across the USSR. Students in Baku, Kazakhstan
and Georgia all studied the same composers - such as Beethoven,
Bach, Tchaikovsky and Glinka - and performed the same pieces.
They didn't learn about composers from their own republic until
their final year of school, at age 17.

Today we are free to prepare our own curriculum and programs
and even to choose our own teaching methods. We have been able
to designate more time for Azerbaijani music literature, history
and national culture. During the Soviet era, we only taught three
Azerbaijani composers: Uzeyir Hajibeyov, Gara Garayev and Fikrat
Amirov. But today, we also include the likes of Vasif Adigozalov,
Arif Malikov, Musa Mirzayev, Tofig Guliyev, Agshin Alizade, Jovdat
Hajiyev and others.

However, the time set aside for Azerbaijani music is still far
too little - only two hours a week over two years. In the future,
I want to begin teaching Azerbaijani music to students in the
first grade.

Teaching Mugham
I consider it a great loss for Azerbaijani culture that our youth
do not know about mugham and the modes upon which our traditional
music is based. Azerbaijan has seven primary mugham modes, each
one divided into at least seven parts. But up until the present,
we've only taught students about major and minor keys, the foundation
for Western music. Our music would be greatly enriched if we
taught them the modes of mugham as well.

In 1945,
Uzeyir Hajibeyov wrote a valuable book about the basics of mugham,
called "Principles of Azerbaijani Music." Unfortunately,
up until recently, we haven't been able to study this book in
depth. Right now, we're looking for specialists who are familiar
with mugham and will be able to teach it.

Our school has seven different departments: piano, string instruments,
wind instruments, music theory, chorus conducting, composition
and Azerbaijani national instruments. In each department, students
are taught about European and Russian music first, before moving
on to Azerbaijani music in their last few years of study.

This strategy is not always effective, especially for children
who come from the regions to study traditional singing. Western
music is alien to them. We try to teach them Bach and Beethoven,
but they just can't grasp these other styles of music. Even by
the 11th grade, they still don't understand these composers.
Instead of sticking to the old program, we need to teach these
khananda students Azerbaijani music first; only after that should
we be teaching them foreign composers.

International Relations
Another development is that now we can make relationships with
foreigners and foreign countries. In the past, it would have
been impossible to have even invited a foreigner to our school.
I would not have had the right to invite a foreign journalist
to my office without informing the Minister of Education. He,
in turn, would have had to confer with others. Decisions were
made in Moscow regarding who to meet with, who not to meet with.
Now if we receive invitations from other countries, we don't
have to ask anyone about it - not even the Ministry of Education.
I think this is one of the greatest benefits of our independence
- that we can forge our own friendships and relationships.

Pressing Needs
In order for us to teach Azerbaijani music and continue to teach
Western music, we need to meet many pressing needs. Music literature
books are in very short supply at our school, especially books
related to Azerbaijani music. Without these books, it's very,
very difficult for our teachers to teach.

Left: Students at the International School
in Baku watching a performance of the Quintet and other Bulbul
School Musicians, November 2001.

We don't
have modern equipment like TV sets or CD players. When our teachers
want to play certain pieces for students, they have to make do
with Soviet-era equipment and very old records. We need to have
rooms that are equipped with modern sound equipment for our music
literature classes.

We need to have a center where recordings can be kept so that
teachers in a classroom can request a song to be played; then
a person from that center would play it so that it could be heard
in the classroom. But it's not enough just to listen to a piece
once during class time; the students should be able to go to
a decent music library where they can listen to pieces over and
over again. Unfortunately, students don't have this opportunity
because we don't have enough money to provide equipment.

It's very challenging to find printed or recorded music for 20th-century
Azerbaijani composers. Many of their works have never been published.
Arif Malikov has presented us with his records, so we can play
them for students. But since we don't material from the other
composers, we can only give our students information about their
lives and the names of their works.

For example, Vasif Adigozalov
composed a piece called "Chanakkale", which was performed
in Turkey and shown on TV twice. But the work has never been
published; even Adigozalov himself only has the handwritten version.

Left: Bulbul School students
who received the President's Golden Book of Young Talents award
in 1999: Ayyub Guliyev (tarist), Amil Hasanov (singer).

Slow Process
We're happy that Azerbaijan is independent now, but we still
feel bogged down by the legacy of our Soviet past. We're moving
forward, but with baby steps. I believe it will take several
generations for Azerbaijani music to return to the high level
that it reached in the early 20th century, when giants like Hajibeyov
were at the head of our music development.

We still haven't compiled the new programs that we want to have.
We still don't have the resources to offer our students more
opportunities for learning. Besides these obstacles, we also
need to change our mentality. We need to find qualified teachers
who are able to teach Azerbaijani music according to the new
program. And this process will take a long time. But I think
that finally we are on the right track. Our independence has
already made a significant impact on the development of our education
in music.

Bulbul quintet
visits London
This past June a group of five students from one of Baku's most
prestigious music schools got the chance to visit some of England's
finest music schools. The highly qualified musicians who were
chosen to represent the school included three violinists: Rovshan
Amrahov, Sabina Guliyeva and Anar Aliyev; cellist Denis Utkin;
and pianist Saida Taghizade.

The idea for the trip came from Linda Lawrence, wife of BP's
then head of Media and Public Relations in Baku. Lawrence, a
former chemistry teacher from St. Paul's Girls' School in London,
had lived in Baku for the past two years and enjoyed the superb
quality of music. "I decided to see if we could develop
a relationship between the music schools here in Azerbaijan and
the well-known music schools of London. I hope there will be
an ongoing partnership."

The Azerbaijani youth visited two music schools: the exclusive
Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey (named after the famous violinist)
and the St. Paul's Boys School and Girls School in London. But
the highlight of the trip came when BBC asked them to perform
a 15-minute concert, which was broadcast back home live to Azerbaijan.
Violinist Rovshan Amrahov played "Caprice No. 9" by
Paganini, violinist Sabina Guliyeva played "Carmen"
by Pablo de Sarasate and pianist Saida Taghizade played Rachmaninov's
"Musical Moment". The quartet, which included Rovshan,
Sabina, cellist Denis Utkin and violinist Anar Aliyev, played
"Scherzo" by Sultan Hajibeyov, "Dalilo" by
Khayyam Mirzazade and "Quartet No. 2", first part,
by Mozart.

While in England, the students gained exposure to new ideas that
they hope they'll be able to implement back home. "We watched
an improvisation played by a trio of violin, cello and piano.
The instructor suggested a main theme, and then a trio of students
had to improvise and continue it. We'd love to try this out with
a quintet of piano and stringed instruments."

Sight-reading also fascinated them. Rovshan commented, "It
takes a very professional musician to be able to play something
right away if they've never seen the piece before. There are
competitions for sight-reading in Moscow, Berlin and London,
but we have never had that kind of training in Baku."

Another difference they found was that British students had access
to labs where they could listen to recordings and computers where
they could compose music.

"It also impressed us that the students at the Menuhin School
often take part in international competitions," Rovshan
added. "For instance, their violin players participate in
the Pablo Sarasate International Violin Competition in Spain.
We would love to be able to do that."

The students' itinerary included concerts and a workshop about
composer Benjamin Britten as well as sightseeing. "They
saw a great deal of London," Lawrence said. "I tried
to show them as much as possible in that one week including the
Buckingham Palace, Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament,
the New Tate and the Covent Garden."

Behind the scenes, helping to make such a dream possible for
these youth were two Azerbaijani families and a British family
that they stayed with in London. British Airways that provided
the flights between the two capitals.

For more information about Bulbul Music School, contact Nigar
Asgarova at Tel: (994-12) 92-61-69 or 32-78-19.